Defense Witness: Dr Kennedy Daniels

To me, some things just don’t make sense. I heard that Ronald McDonald is no longer being used to market hamburgers. Maybe he has been reduced to a shopping cart and a cigarette. The Hamburgler can’t be far behind. Still, it just doesn’t match up.

In researching this blog on Dr Kennedy Daniels, I came across two facebook accounts. Neither this nor this match up as the “Dr Kennedy Daniels”. Cup doesn’t match saucer.

Dr Kennedy Daniels is an orthopaedic doctor in Richmond, Virginia. Today, he was supposed to testify in trial for the defense. Originally, I was going to type “against one of our clients” because that is the way he seems to always testify. The case got continued because Richmond Circuit Court did not have enough Judges for trial today. One of those times that most of the Judges were at a conference.

Dr Daniels is also scheduled to testify tomorrow, on behalf of the defense. His testimony is also adverse to our client’s interests.

In both cases, he never saw our client; He did a record review and is basing his testimony solely on “his review of the records”. You don’t need Alex Trebeck to be able to guess what his testimony is going to be again. He has determined that the client did not need all of the treatment that was received. In these instances, different defense attorneys have identified his expected testimony as eerily the same in both cases.

Defense attorneys usually can find doctors to testify. Plaintiffs have treating doctors and defense have their medical evaluations or record review doctors testify.

Right now, Dr Daniels appears to be the “flavor of the month” for the defense. He will get on the stand and say that he can be more objective, being removed from the care. Somehow, he wants the jury to believe that not seeing the plaintiff/patient, is more objective. That’s why it’s called a defense medical examination or defense medical record review.

Here’s what doesn’t match up to me. He would never operate or treat someone, without seeing them, would he? At least that’s what I asked him in the most recent trial where he testified. Last trial I asked him how many patients he currently has in California. He gave me a confused look. I then said, “Well doctor, based on your testimony about objectivity, when not seeing the patient; it seems to me that you would only have out of state patients”. He just smirked.

For consideration, he wouldn’t get paid $5,000 (cost of his appearance in court that is paid by defense) if he did not render an opinion that was favorable to the defense. They would not call him to testify. That $5,000 doesn’t include his expense for reviewing the records and writing his report.

In tomorrow’s jury trial, he is supposedly going to render the opinion that the treatment of one of his partners was unnecessary. That’s right…. one of his partners. That doesn’t seem to match up, to me.

He admits that he does these medical record reviews from his house and that the billing and payment use his home address. He doesn’t have to share that with the rest of his practice or partners, I’m told. It’s a separate business.

When doing defense examinations, there is no doctor/patient prvilege. So, the only relationship of Dr Daniels, is with the defense attorney. I wonder if that is what the hippocratic oath ever contemplated?

It will be interesting to see what happens in this trial. I hope that the jury places no belief in a $5,000 record review. Hopefully, they will say that it just doesn’t match up.

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